


You'll know who I am by the songs that I sing

by NancyBrown



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Groundhog Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-07 04:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15900702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: Martha is stuck reliving the same day over and over. In a world without consequences, she does exactly what she wants to do.





	You'll know who I am by the songs that I sing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tish/gifts).



Martha sat back in her chair. It creaked under her in a familiar way. She looked out the window of her office upon a sight she'd seen plenty of times before: UNIT troops marching in a row, out for exercise. She listened to the voices in the outer room, coming through the wooden door as a mutter, just as it always did.

She waited, listening for the crash. There, outside her window, a car careened out of the way of the marching soldiers and into a post. She counted three long breaths.

"Doctor Jones!" came the shout, and Sarah opened Martha's door. "There's been an accident outside."

Martha smiled tightly. "The driver has mild contusions. Give him paracetamol and an ice pack, and he'll be fine. No one else is injured." She looked down at the papers on her desk as Sarah stood there, gaping. "Go on. You've got this."

Sarah shut the door. Martha sighed. With the base occupied, she now had the next twenty-two minutes to herself.

She turned on the recorder. "Day seventy-six. I'm still here. I can cross out canoeing away from the base. Not sure if I added the helicopter trial, but it is hereby added." Per her usual routine, she picked up her mobile and dialled the number to the TARDIS. No signal. "No word from You Know Who." With a press of the button, she stopped recording. It didn't matter. Tomorrow, everything would reset, her recording blank, just as it had for all the previous days since she began documenting her ordeal.

She'd patiently made her way through the alien artefacts kept here on base. Jack would give all his teeth for some of them if he ever found out about the extensive collection. Someone's teeth, certainly. The Doctor would just give her one of those looks, sad and disappointed, as though she'd become something distasteful by working for the same organisation he'd worked for back in the day. 

There was nothing in the collection she could find to explain what was happening to her. She'd tried calling the Doctor, calling Torchwood, even calling her mum, but none of the phones she tried worked for her. She'd walked the Earth once, and now she couldn't even walk beyond the boundaries of the base. Every time she tried leaving, she found herself neat as you please back at the border, like a kitten picked up by the scruff and deposited back with the rest of the litter whenever it wandered.

She was being kept here by an outside force. Knowing her life, it was no doubt alien in nature. All she had to do was find out what was causing this. Then she could break the loop.

Her minutes trickled by. In theory, she was supposed to be working on a report, but she'd done that three times during this stretch and didn't see the point in doing it again. The unfinished report would still be there in the morning.

One minute left.

Her landline wouldn't dial any more than her mobile did. She'd tried. Nevertheless she lifted it from the cradle as she had so often before and rang her sister. No signal. Martha set it down again.

Time was up. She sighed, already halfway to her feet. She'd taken the time to stow the supplies she'd need in the Jeep she knew she'd take. "Sarah!" she called, marching briskly through the office. "Come with me."

Going to the runway earlier didn't help. Martha couldn't convince the tower to change the plane's course, and standing there waving her arms to warn the pilot herself had done nothing. The crash came just as they reached the hill, Sarah confused, the young lieutenant driving them even more confused. His name was Lt. Usmani, and he was nervous about asking out his roommate for a proper date, and one of these times, Martha intended to shove him out there and go for it. Perhaps if this loop didn't work out, she'd take the next one off.

"Ma'am?" Lt. Usmani asked, as Martha grabbed her kit and urged Sarah to do the same. "What's going on?"

"The plane crashed. Didn't you see? There will be three injuries. General Stephens has a broken leg. Sarah, you start on her. Lieutenant, call for more medics."

Martha didn't wait for the firefighters to go in. The plane wouldn't catch, and it wouldn't explode. "Here," she said to the first person she saw, a frightened, bleeding woman. "Compress the wound here. The other medics will arrive soon, Sergeant Szymański."

"Thank you," she said, wearing the same confusion Lt. Usmani and Sarah did. Martha didn't have time for it now. She'd be okay.

She made her way to the front of the plane. The sight always got to her. The pilot's face was cut in dozens of places. His helmet was cracked, and blood oozed out across the drab plastic. He was alive, she knew, but the length of time that would continue depended on what she did now.

"Everything is going to be all right," she told him, smiling. "I'm here to help you, Lt. Price. And this time, it's going to work."

***

Many hours later, and one emergency operation complete, Martha scrubbed the day's work from her hands. Sarah came to the door, like she did most days. She was a fantastic assistant, and a good friend, and when she completed the last of her residency under Martha, she was going to make a fine doctor. If that ever happened. If this day ever ended.

"Doctor Jones?"

"You really ought to call me Martha."

"We've only known each other for a short time, Doctor."

For Sarah, it had been about two weeks. For Martha, they'd known each other for months, spending this same day racing to save these same patients. "Fair enough. What did you need?" As if they hadn't spent this same time having this same conversation before.

"You knew exactly where he was bleeding internally. If you hadn't operated immediately, he would have died."

"That's the job. We save lives." She dried her hands on a disposable towel then dropped it into the biohazardous waste bin. Save the Earth, commit to the ultimate act of recycling: recycle the whole planet every day!

"We usually find out what's wrong with the patients first. You already knew."

The conversation went a few ways from here. Martha was tired. She went for honesty this time. "By my reckoning, I've been stuck in a time loop for over two months. I've saved him a lot. It's much easier to diagnose someone you had to autopsy when you got it wrong."

The confusion turned to shock. "How?"

"I wish I knew. You heard about my past. I used to travel with the Doctor. _The_ Doctor. This is a kind of time travel, one day over and over, but I can't reach him to ask what's going on, or even find out if he's aware of what's happened. I'm stuck here until I find my own way out."

Sarah stepped closer. "You're serious? You're not just teasing the new girl?"

"I wish I was pulling your leg."

"But that's amazing! You could do anything you want. You could sleep all day. You could eat all the chocolate on the base." Sarah's face was lit with possibility, and Martha was amused to discover once again what motivated her assistant. Some people she could name would dive into a repeating day of sex or drugs. Sarah wanted a nap and some sweets. When this was over, Martha intended to buy her a carload of chocolate.

"I want to help people." If nothing she did inside the loop mattered, then everything she did while she was stuck here had to matter to herself. No one else in the whole universe might ever find out what Martha did when she could literally do anything without consequences, but she would. Mum would be proud. "If I'm on hand when people are injured, it's my job to heal them. I want to heal them."

"Even knowing they'll be hurt again the same way tomorrow?"

Martha shrugged. "Even then. Tomorrow doesn't matter. They're hurt today. Price will die today if I don't get there when the plane crashes. Even if he's alive again when I wake up in the morning." The times she'd tried to leave burned in her soul. Those days she knew for certain that he'd died. Maybe that was why she hadn't made many attempts at leaving, and why all those attempts ended with her back on the base.

"It sounds enough to drive you mad."

"Some days it is. Worth it, though." She gestured at the post-op room where Price was resting. "He's alive today. That's what matters."

***

Martha woke up in her bed the same way she did every morning. The same song played on the radio. The radio personalities made the same jokes. In the mess, the same breakfast was waiting for her. Her phone still didn't work, not her landline, not her mobile. When she logged into her work computer for the day, the emails she sent to the few people who would understand her plight went unread and unanswered.

Sarah came in with tea. "Here you go, Doctor. I made you a bit of a treat. Don't expect me to fetch your tea every morning."

Martha lifted the mug, filled with the same tea she drank every day, over and over into eternity, amen. "I understand completely. This is only for today. Thank you."

After Sarah left, Martha sat back in her chair. It creaked under her in a familiar way.

Day seventy-seven.


End file.
